Of this committee, Patrick Henry was a member; and with him were associated Archibald Cary, Henry Lee, Nicholas, Edmund Randolph, Bland, Dudley Digges, Paul Carrington, Mann Page, Madison, George Mason, and others. The two tasks before the committee--that of drafting a statement of rights, and that of drafting a constitution for the new State of Virginia--must have pressed heavily upon its leading members. In the work of creating a new state government, Virginia was somewhat in advance of the other colonies; and for this reason, as well as on account of its general preeminence among the colonies, the course which it should take in this crisis was watched with extraordinary attention. John Adams said, at the time, "We all look up to Virginia for examples."[241] Besides, in Virginia itself, as well as in the other colonies, there was an unsettled question as to the nature of the state governments which were then to be instituted. Should they be strongly aristocratic and conservative, with a possible place left for the monarchical feature; or should the popular elements in each colony be more largely recognized, and a decidedly democratic character given to these new constitutions? On this question, two strong parties existed in Virginia. In the first place, there were the old aristocratic families, and those who sympathized with them. These people, numerous, rich, cultivated, influential, in objecting to the unfair encroachments of British authority, had by no means intended to object to the nature of the British constitution, and would have been pleased to see that constitution, in all its essential features, retained in Virginia. This party was led by such men as Robert Carter Nicholas, Carter Braxton, and Edmund Pendleton. In the second place, there were the democrats, the reformers, the radicals,--who were inclined to take the opportunity furnished by Virginia's rejection of British authority as the occasion for rejecting, within the new State of Virginia, all the aristocratic and monarchical features of the British Constitution itself. This party was led by such men as Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, and George Mason. Which party was to succeed in stamping its impress the more strongly on the new plan for government in Virginia?